Hope Hathaway Part 32

"I tried to make you angry. Why aren't you?" said Hope seriously.

"Angry with you!" he exclaimed softly. "With you, my girl! Look at me closely--in my eyes and see the reason!" He stood beside her. His hand grasped hers, his powerful magnetism drew her until her cheeks flamed, but not the flicker of downcast eyelids betrayed more than the faintest, friendliest indifference.

"Come on," she said, turning abruptly toward the tent, "I'm starved for my supper!"

CHAPTER XXVI

"You bad girl," cried Clarice Van Rensselaer from the table, "why did you run away? See this nice dinner spoiling for you! I've regained my good nature, which is lucky for you, but you'll have to give an account of yourself. Actually, I had to send Mr. Livingston to look you up!" She glanced with a well-bred look of quizzical amus.e.m.e.nt from Hope's brilliant, flushed face to the man who accompanied her. "Well, you see that I for one didn't wait for you," she concluded; "couldn't! I don't think I ever was so hungry before in my whole life. Everything tastes _perfectly_ delicious!"

"William has outdone himself this time," remarked Sydney, as the girl drew up an empty box and seated herself at the table, taking a little food upon her plate and making a pretense of eating. Everything tasted like wood. She could scarcely swallow. It finally occurred to her that she must be acting very unlike herself. She made a violent effort to appear natural, succeeding fairly well.

"You haven't given account of yourself, yet," said Mrs. Van Rensselaer, glancing from her end of the table to where Hope sat, still in silence.

"Don't ask me," said the girl. "My excuse would sound too trivial to you, Clarice. Perhaps I wanted to watch the first stars of evening."

"Or follow a frog to its nest in the weeds," supplemented Sydney, "or catch gra.s.s-hoppers that had gone to roost, or listen to the night-song of the cat bird in the brush or--or what, Hopie? Maybe you were writing poems in your mind, or preparing new lessons for school to-morrow."

"Yes, that's just it," she replied. "I was preparing new lessons--for to-morrow!"

"How funny!" laughed Mrs. Van Rensselaer. "I had forgotten you were a full-fledged school-teacher. Of course, I suppose you do have to think about your teaching some. Goodness, I wouldn't like it at all! It must be an awful task to bother with a lot of rough, dirty children! How many pupils have you?"

"Seventeen enrolled--but only seven or eight who attend," replied Hope briefly.

"Mercy, I thought you must have at least fifty, from all I saw back there!" gasped Mrs. Van Rensselaer. "Well, I shouldn't think it would be much trouble to prepare lessons for that amount."

"_That many_," corrected Hope. "We don't measure them by the pound."

"No, we size them up by the cord," laughed Sydney; "but we don't handle 'em, because they're like that much dynamite."

"Dangerous pieces of humanity," said Livingston, smiling.

"Hope can handle them all right," declared Mrs. Van Rensselaer. "She can handle anyone, for that matter. She's got more tact and diplomacy than any politician. Trust her to manage seven or eight children! Why, if she can't manage a person any other way, she'll actually _bully_ him.

She can make you believe black is white every time."

"Fraulein is so goot!" murmured Louisa, in rapture.

"Thank you," replied Hope gratefully. "You see Louisa knows me _last_, Clarice, and her remark should show you that I have changed for the better."

"I always told you there was chance for improvements, didn't I, Hopie?"

laughed Sydney.

"Yes, you have said something about there being _room_ for improvement, but I always supposed you judged me to be a hopeless case. I'm glad though you think there's a _chance_! I always did want to improve!" As she spoke she pushed back the box upon which she had been sitting, turning it over to make it lower, and seated herself near the corner of the tent, where she was shaded from the direct rays of the lantern's light.

More than a half hour had already pa.s.sed, she thought nervously. Then she began to count the minutes before her messengers should return. The time seemed endless since she had decided to wait for more particulars before informing Livingston of what was about to take place. The twins had learned of it only that afternoon, and they, though filled with the foreboding of a desperate plot, could tell nothing positive about the actual plans. These she hoped they would be able to ascertain. She believed that the soft-voiced twin knew more than he was willing to divulge when he advised her so emphatically against informing Livingston of the plot. This, combined with a certain anxiety of her own, which she was unable to define, filled her with vague uneasiness and decided her instantly to do nothing until the boys returned with more particulars.

"You don't mean to say you've finished your supper, Hope," exclaimed Mrs. Van Rensselaer, as the girl settled herself comfortably in the dark corner. "_I_ never was so hungry before in all my life!" She turned to Jim McCullen, who put his head inside the tent: "You see, Mr. McCullen, that good, hard, patient endeavor brings its own reward! I wouldn't miss this for worlds!"

"I'm very glad to hear it, ma'am," replied old Jim politely. "Reckon you'll sleep pretty well out there to-night, no misquitoes er nothin' to bother you. The tent's all ready fer you folks any time. Plenty o'

blankets an' it'll be a warmer night'n usual. Well, so long!"

"Why, he's going away!" said Hope in surprise, as a horse loped down the creek bank and on through the brush trail. An impulse to run out and call him back seized her. Sydney's slow reply caused a delay, the impulse to do so wavered, and in another moment it was too late; yet she felt somehow that she had made a mistake.

"Yes," replied Carter, after listening to Mrs. Van Rensselaer's chatter for a moment, "he's going over to the round-up. It's camped about ten or fifteen miles, down at the foot of the mountains. It's as light as day out and much pleasanter riding in the cool of evening. He'll be back early in the morning. Had some mail from the ranch to take over to the boys."

"The poor fellows on the round-up all summer! I bet they're glad to get their mail," murmured Clarice.

"What they get don't hurt them any," remarked Sydney. "Range riding isn't conducive to letter writing, and it doesn't take long before a cow-puncher is about forgotten by his home people, and his mail consists of an occasional newspaper, sent by someone who happens to remember him, and the regular home letter from his old mother, who never forgets. By the way, here's a lot of mail for O'Hara. Have to ride over with it unless he turns up pretty soon."

"Dear Larry!" said Clarice. "What made him leave just when I came up here? I'd love to see him! He's such a jolly good fellow. You didn't send him away on some wild-goose chase, did you, Hope?"

The girl shaded her eyes with her hand and answered languidly: "No, there wasn't enough excitement here, so he went over to the military reservation. They are out on drill over near here--Colonel Walsh, and a lot of West Point fellows Larry knows, and so he pulled stakes, just quit our company entirely, and turned old Watch Eye toward Fox Creek."

She drawled her words out slowly as if to fill in time. Livingston, whose eyes constantly sought her face, thought she must be very tired, and rose suddenly to take his leave. She was upon her feet in a flash.

"Sit right down!" she demanded nervously. "Surely you wouldn't think of leaving us so early; why, we'd all get stupid and go to bed immediately, and Clarice wouldn't enjoy herself at all!" She laid her hand upon his sleeve entreatingly. "_Stay!_" she urged softly.

"As you say," he replied. "It is a pleasure to remain, but you must tell me when I am to go. I thought perhaps you were tired."

She drew her hand away with a sudden movement. He seated himself beside Mrs. Van Rensselaer, who began immediately to congratulate him upon his good sense in remaining.

"But it was compulsory," he returned. "I didn't dare disobey orders."

"I should say not," agreed Clarice, laughing merrily, "we always mind Hope. Everybody does."

"She always knows the right," said little Louisa, looking lovingly at her friend.

"Why, of course," agreed Mrs. Van Rensselaer, "that's taken for granted."

Hope was again in her corner, silent, intent. Livingston could only conclude that she was tired. The rest of them took no special notice of her, nor did they hear the distant splashing of water which brought into activity all the blood in her body and fired each nerve. Clarice was giving an elaborate account of her day's experience, consequently no attention was paid to the girl's abrupt departure. She smiled at Louisa as she pa.s.sed quietly out and made some remark about her horse, which gave the impression that she might have forgotten something. At least Livingston and Louisa received that impression; as for the others they were busy, and besides Hope was Hope, who always followed her own free fancy.

The girl fairly flew along the trail that skirted the creek until she grasped the bridle of a small Indian pony that was nosing its way cautiously toward her.

"Oh, it's you!" exclaimed its small rider in a relieved tone, as he slipped to the ground and stood in the path beside the girl. "I was mighty scared it might be somebody else." Hope raised the boy's face so that the moon shone full upon it.

"Ned!" she exclaimed under her breath. "Why are you here? Where are the boys?"

"The old man's got 'em locked up in the granary," he announced. Then seeing the look of alarm that flashed into her face, added a.s.suringly: "But that's all right, _I'm_ here! They told me to tell you they'd get out somehow 'fore mornin'. I cached their horses in the brush for 'em, and they're diggin' themselves out underneath the barn. Here," he said, handing something to her. "I got your rifle out o' your room an' hid it under the house soon's ever you left, an' all these cartridges. I just knew the old man 'ud go an' look fer it."

"Oh!" exclaimed the girl, suddenly gathering child, gun, and all into her arms. "What a little _man_ you are."

"Yep," said the boy, disengaging himself; "an' I've got a lot to tell you!"

"And you're _sure_ about this," questioned Hope, after the boy had told a story so complete in detail as to fairly unnerve her. "You're _perfectly_ sure that these men are going to meet at the shed--the big shed close to Fritz's grave, there below the ledge of rocks?"

"Sure's anything," replied the boy convincingly. "There'll be seven er eight from our place, some from Old Peter's an' some from up the creek."